The Paris of Christophe Honoré’s “Love Songs” (“Les Chansons d’Amour”) belongs unmistakably to the present. Its residents talk on cellphones and drop the name of Nicolas Sarkozy (still an aspirant to the Élysée Palace rather than an occupant when the movie was being shot). But they also dwell, just as noticeably, in the Paris of classic French movies — in a vague, bracing atmosphere of good old Nouvelle Vague.

The opening titles present the surnames of the actors in unadorned block capitals, à la mid-’60s Jean-Luc Godard, while the camera poetically prowls the streets of the city. And, among other sly quotations, an early shot of a couple reading in bed evokes a memorable, much-reproduced image from François Truffaut’s “Bed and Board.”

Except that, in this case, the couple is a threesome. Ismaël (the mischievous and soulful Louis Garrel) and his live-in girlfriend, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), have expanded their arrangement to include Ismaël’s co-worker Alice (Clotilde Hesme), an addition that fascinates Julie’s mother (Brigitte Roüan). But the girl-boy-girl threesome, which turns out to be short-lived, is perhaps the most straightforward emotional configuration in this odd, witty, touching film. Eventually, you see, Alice — who insists early on that her primary sexual interests are in women and celibacy — takes up with a young Breton man named Gwendal (Yannick Renier), whose younger brother, Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), develops a crush on Ismaël, who is also the object of nonsexual stalkerish attention from Julie’s older sister, Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni).

And I haven’t even mentioned that, every now and again, one or more of these attractive, articulate, love-addled people bursts into song. What do they sing about? What do you think? About love, naturellement, and also — pourquoi pas? — about Paris. (A nightclub singer croons some verses about Manhattan, but who’s he kidding?)

The songs, written by Alex Beaupain, belong to a strain of contemplative, literate French pop that is, for music fans not from France, something of an acquired taste. The English subtitles may not help, as they sometimes turn Mr. Beaupain’s delicate erotic metaphors into lines like: “Keep your saliva as an antidote/Let it trickle like sweet venom down my throat.”

The melodies are charming, though. And so, for the most part, is “Love Songs,” even if it doesn’t entirely work. It takes some nerve nowadays to conceive a musical that is both realistic and earnest, frank in its emotions and cognizant of the complicated states of feeling encountered by frisky young city dwellers. There is nothing mocking or knowing in Mr. Honoré’s fusion of sexual comedy, intellectual seriousness and music, and he is not shy about throwing strong, even shocking moments of drama into the mix. Hovering over the generally good-humored sexual confusion is the specter of mortality, as the bed-hopping is interrupted, at the end of the film’s first act, by a sudden, senseless death.

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But even though Mr. Honoré is trying something very interesting — and even though his nimble cast executes it with grace and more or less in tune — the execution doesn’t quite live up to the concept. No single element (apart from those song-lyric subtitles) is bad, exactly, but an element of coherence is missing. The musical numbers are restrained and not especially showy, but their tact makes them feel more rather than less self-conscious. The songs don’t sunder the naturalism that surrounds them, but they don’t quite enhance it either, and the result is a movie that feels, curiously, at once modest to the point of diffidence and feverishly overwrought.

Still, for all its imperfections, “Love Songs” is a worthy and intriguing experiment, the latest sortie in an international rescue operation aimed at saving musical cinema from extinction or self-parody. Like other movies that have been involved in this undertaking — “Once,” say, or “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” — Mr. Honoré’s film is likely to inspire ardent love among its admirers. The rest of us may envy their passion.

LOVE SONGS

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Written (in French, with English subtitles) and directed by Christophe Honoré; director of photography, Rémy Chevrin; edited by Chantal Hymans; music by Alex Beaupain; production designer, Samuel Deshors; produced by Paulo Branco; released by IFC Films and Red Envelope Entertainment. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. This film is not rated.